
Glass ^4 57 

Book i-L 



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ex 



DISCOURSE 



THK DAY AFTER THE 



RECEPTION OF THE TIDINGS 



OF THE ASSASSINATION OF 



">1i 
-^h"*^ 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



PUEACHED IN THE 



mtk (Rmp^^tx0m\ (&\nm% 



CONCORD, N. H., APRIL 16, 1865. 



BY THE PASTOR, 

REV. HENRY E. PARKER. 



CONCORD : 

PEINTED BY McFAKLAND & JENKS, 

1865. 



DISCOURSE 



THK DAY AFTER THE 



RECEPTION OF THE TIDINGS 



OP THK ASSASSINATIOK 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



PREACHED IN THE 



^mWx fyw^u^wtmml dllmvdi, 



CONCORD, N. H., APRIL 16, 1865. V^.'V op wa8«\««' 




BY THK PASTOR, 

REV. HENRY E. PARKER. 



CONCORD : 
PKINTED BY McFARLAND & JENKS, 

1865. 



.8 



DISCOURSE 



JOHN 11: 53. 
"Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him 
to death." 

It is no new thing for the good to be hated, and to 
be martyred. Eighteen hundred years ago a Divine 
One walked the earth ; yet he had bitter enemies, who 
foully plotted against his hfe ; nor did their malice 
subside till their fiendish machinations were success- 
ful ; with a traitor's aid they compassed his death one 
Friday afternoon in April, or the month most nearly 
corresponding to it in the Jewish Calendar. That day 
has been remembered. A large part of the Christian 
world annually commemorate it with enjoined fastings 
and penitential sorrow. Day before yesterday was its 
anniversary ; the day once made dark with the cruci- 
fixion. It is by a strange permission of Providence 
that henceforth the American mind will associate with 
Good Friday and its dying Lord, the death of our 
honored President. Providence has permitted the 
singular coincidence, sad and sacred. Nor was it any 
dishonor to thee, President Lincoln, to have follen by 
the hand of such an assassin — the victhn of such 
malice. The friendship of such men would have been 
a dishonor — men in whose hearts was still rampant 
the demon of secession and rebellion. This is not the 



first case where hatred, and wrong, and violence, have 
been an eternal honor to him who has experienced 
them. Thine assassination by Secessia's hand is the 
very crown of thy patriotism and worth ! 

And murder, murder just like this, horrible as hell 
could conceive, which has stunned the nation this day, 
which will shock the world, we had, perhaps, full rea- 
son to expect. When, four years ago this last fall, 
the votes of the nation declared to the South that 
they could no longer rule the country, that their 
power ha,d departed, then were formed plots to seize 
upon the government by violence, and prevent the 
rightful occupant from ever reaching the Presidential 
Chair. " Then from that day forth they took counsel 
together for to put him to death." We well remem- 
ber how, only through the adroit management of 
friendly railroad officials, the President reached Wash- 
ington at all. We could not believe it till the fact 
was forced upon us, that there was a definite, well-laid 
plan to assassinate him on the way; and that leading 
southern men were both cognizant of the plot and 
accessory to it. We know, however, that for a long 
time guards were felt to be necessary about the Pres- 
idential mansion. We know how that, from time to 
time, discoveries were made of new plots, requiring 
new precautions. We remember how, when for 
health's sake the President had retired to the " Sol- 
diers' Retreat" as a summer residence, it was found 
requisite for his safety that he should be daily accom- 
panied in and out from Washington with a mounted 
escort. The threats of the dangers of assassination 
thus have always hung about him. 

Or is it surprising that the black heart and bloody 



hand of the genius of slavery and rebelhon should 
have been equal to an act like this ; the pitiless heart, 
the savage hand, long familiar with lacerating the 
naked bodies of bondmen and bondwomen, tearing 
husbands and wives asunder, parents and children ; — 
that black heart which could nourish treason such 
as this rebellion has brought forth, how natural a 
nest for such a project of assassination ! That matri- 
cidal hand lifted against the mother-country of us 
all — how slight a thing for it to wield the assassin's 
weapons ! And when, by the recent victories, it had 
at last become evident to the blindest southern pride 
and hate that the miserable cause of the Confederacy 
was meeting its miserable end, then, stung to mad- 
ness in its disappointed rage, this act is most naturally 
committed : like the devils of the bottomless pit, 
ruined themselves, their only remaining care to ruin 
as much with them as possible. I know of no parallel 
out of hell. The nearest to it in hmnan history is 
the act of Herod, who, when he knew that he must 
die, incarcerated the most eminent citizens of the 
realm, with strict orders for their assassination at the 
moment of his death, that there might be some mourn- 
ing in the land. Oh that it had been the will of 
heaven in like manner to have frustrated this infer- 
nalism as it did that ! 

Yes, w^e had reason enough to infer this act, but it 
had been deferred so long we fondly hoped that safety 
was secured. Alas ! how terribly were we mistaken ! 
Oh, my country, my country ! How have I, in these 
late years, mourned for thee in thy prostration in the 
dust ! — at the humiliating spectacle thou has made 
for the derision of the nations — who have scoffed at 



thy struggles and thy sorrows — who have mocked at 
thy departing greatness and glories, as they hoped ; 
who have looked upon thy gigantic efforts against thy 
foe. thy wounds and thy blood, as the degenerate 
thousands of the ancient amphitheater stretched their 
eager necks, and with fiendish satisfaction gloated 
over the struggling gladiators of the arena, 

" Butchered to make a Roman holiday ! " 

And now, when at last I saw thee, my noble country, 
emerging from thy humiliation and disgrace, and 
springing to thine old position of influence and re- 
nown, and more, — Oh, to see thee present this most 
humbling sight of all before the world, of having 
nourished such a monster, capable of such an act, and 
of having such a deed committed upon thy soil ! for, 
excepting the murder of the ages, the crucifixion itr 
self, human history seems not to have furnished its 
parallel. 

But, my hearers, are there any words to be uttered 
this hour, beside those of bitter lamentation for the 
act and execration of it ? Can I to-day perform my 
usual duty of uttering God's lessons to you, as sug- 
gested by the volume of his word or the book of his 
providence ? Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to 
enable us to recover from the appalling, bewildering 
effects of the tidings. We can not yet look upon the 
matter with a clear and steady eye. Still, I feel there 
are some things I can even now say. 

And, first : I feel that we are more than ever in 
God's hands ; that he is most directly and conspicu- 
ously dealing with us. Think of our feelings the 



past two weeks till yesterday. There were no bounds 
to our joy — we could not express it ! And how that 
joy brought the nation in gratitude to God ; the nar 
tion never so acknowledged him in any joy. Every 
speech that was made did it ; men did it one with 
another ; men who seldom spoke his name felt then 
they must speak of him ; where men gathered in the 
business mart, and on the exchange, doxologies must 
be sung, and prayer and the devout offering of 
thanksgiving be made. I am so glad God was thus 
acknowledged ; not indeed as he ought to have been, 
but yet as he never was before, it gives us such 
ground for trusting that this terrible thing is some^ 
thing other than a divine rebuke. And now our 
sorrow is as great as was then our joy. The very 
greatness of these extremes in the permissions of 
God's providence, are a proof that he is as signally 
with us. It is not in wrath, it is not in divine deser- 
tion that we are experiencing this. The magnitude 
of the previous mercy shows this. That was in one 
sense a gracious preparation for this ; and we have 
still all our late successes and victories to lean upon 
to strengthen and support us. 

It is possible that without great and increasing 
elation, there may have been some danger that we 
should come to lose our sense of dependence — come 
to feel as though all our troubles were past, no more 
dangers to fear, and so soon become God-forgetting 
and self-sufacient. I do not know ; perhaps God saw 
this was about to be — and he anew humbled us, and 
taught us, right in the midst of our highest joy, that 
without his preservation, every cup of our hopes and 
satisfactions will be dashed. 



8 

Long ago I learned to feel that the more striking 
the events in our jDersonal experience, the more evi- 
dently God is dealing with us as individuals. I do 
not know why I should have any less strong convic- 
tions when applying the rule to national events. 

II. But I see more clearly the hand and the mercy 
of God in not allowing this event to occur until it 
did. Had the first intentions of assassination, and the 
first attempts four years ago been successful, it is diffi- 
cult to say how dire might have been the results. 
Anarchy, very likely, would have sprung upon us at 
pnce. Our institutions, our circumstances, certainly 
then could not have borne such a trial, so critical a 
test as they can now ; or if the event had occurred at 
any time subsequently until the present. And think 
what an interposition of the divine goodness w^e ought 
to call it, and most in the loyal States will call it, that 
the President was not taken away before completing 
the great acts of his administration, especially the two 
which have most signalized it, the bringing an end to 
slavery and to the rebellion. 

III. Another thought w^hich presents itself is, that 
perhaps this last act w\as needed to complete the infa- 
my of the rebellion and secession, and of that nefarious 
system of human servitude out of which secession 
and rebellion grew. Such an act as this is the legiti- 
mate offspring of those monsters, and nothing else. 
It is the very hard-hearted pitilessness and savagery 
of slavery which can thus wrest the life of the devoted 
husband from directly beneath the eyes of the loving 
wife, and tear the life of the fond father directly from 



9 

the embraces of dear children ; slavery can educate 
to such bloody heartlessness. It was the hand of 
rebellion and secession that first recklessly and ruth- 
lessly snatched war's flaming brand and waved it 
challengingly and defiantly in the eyes of this govern- 
ment and this nation ; and it is the same hand of 
revolting and appalling recklessness and crime which 
has now seized the assassin's weapons, and, after with 
one of them murdering the defenseless man, the hus- 
band, the father, the President, waved the other with 
that tragedic style and devil's heroism which have 
characterized the actors in the rebellion all along. 
Perhaps this last consummating act was needed to 
open fully the eyes of foreign nations sympathizing 
with secession to the true animus of the rebellion. 
I doubt if we hear any more commendations of it, or 
apologies for it ; it will at last have succeeded in 
awakening the detestation and abhorrence of the civ- 
ilized world, as it long ago should have done. 

And I am not sure but that we too needed this 
further deed of horror to be done, that w^e might be 
preserved from all false leniency toward that trio of 
abominations, slavery, secession, and rebellion ; that we 
might at once proceed with unsparing and speedy 
hand to root out every vestige of them. I have of 
late feared much lest their downfall should not be 
stamped with sufficient ignominy for the best instruc- 
tion and safeguard of coming generations. There is 
little fear now, however. 

At the outset of this rebellion I, in this house, laid 
the charge and crime of it at the door of slat^ery 1 
Little did I think, that in its closing hours such a final 
illustration of its general character and leadings would 



10 

be furnished. But this foul, fell act comes from the 
same influences which could lead, ten years ago, to 
that brutal, murderous beating of the Massachusetts 
senator, defenseless in his legislative seat ; which four 
years ago could fiendishly fling the horrors of civil 
war into this land of happiness and peace ; which 
afterward could wretchedly imitate that miserable vil- 
lain of two hundred and sixty years ago, Guy Faux, 
and mine the Libby Prison to destroy, at a single 
explosion, our prisoners, if Capt. Dahlgren should 
seek to liberate them, and then, subsequently, without 
shame, justify the act ; and which could deliberately 
starve so many thousands of our poor captive soldiers, 
if to death they did not care, out of all possible future 
serviceableness to their country they meant, if not to 
death ; this last work of horrid assassination is but 
the latest. God grant it the final flowering of the 
same hellish plant ! 

IV. And not only may this foul deed have been 
needed to put the last possible brand of infamy upon 
the rebellion and its primal cause, but it also may 
have been desirable as the final, highest test of the 
strength of our institutions and form of government. 
The rebellion and its subjugation have been a fearful 
but most triumphant test ; this is a further, in the 
view of some it would be even a severer. In other 
lands the assassination of the chief ruler has perhaps 
usually been the precursor of anarchy and revolution. 
Wisely was it that not four hours were suffered to 
elap^ before our Vice-President was sworn into the 
office of President. As foreign nations see us pass 
through the ordeal of the termination of one Presi- 



11 

dent's career by violence, and the immediate intro- 
duction to the office of his successor, without commo- 
tion, and the continuance of each department and 
office of the government without any infringement 
upon the usual order and routine, it may be regarded 
as under God the last^ highest test of the sufficiency 
of our Republican form of institutions for any and 
all emergencies. 

V. Again, it may be observed, that very possibly 
the work of President Lincoln was now done, so far 
as he could complete it. Very possibly another could 
better take it up and carry it on. He has done a 
great work — a marvelous work ; history will record 
it as of unsurpassed magnitude and honor. He could 
not have added to his fame. The remaining work is 
now that of reconstruction, and the meting out the 
best measure of blended clemency and justice to those 
who have been traitors and rebels. Very possibly a 
southern loyal man may know better their true sj^irit 
and deserts, and decide upon the better course of 
treatment with respect to them. To us, indeed, it 
seems as though Mr. Lincoln could carry on the 
remaining work better than any other ; yet it may be 
otherwise. To us, it seems, at the least, a fearful ex- 
periment to turn from the alwa^'s discreet, self-poised, 
temperate and sober man, to put the highest authority 
of this government into the hands of a man who has 
so recently and unutterably disgraced himself and us 
through him. But if the imposing upon him this 
great burden of responsibility shall have the same 
effect the similar imposing of a similarly weighty 
responsibility is said to have had upon the great 



12 

LieutenantrGeneral of our armies, he has abundant 
talents, knowledge and experience for the position. 
God keep him and bless him. God bless President 
Johnson I My own conviction is that he will better 
complete what Mr. Lincoln has so incomparably thus 
far carried on, than even our lamented late President 
himself, if spared, wouldl 

VL Yet again, it may be observed, that this fear- 
ful event will have a mighty and happy tendency to 
unite our people. It is not going to have the effect 
of throwing us into anarchy, or of confusing any of 
the operations of our government, or retarding at all 
the progress of our triumphant quelling of the rebell- 
ion, as perhaps the perpetrator of this crime and his 
associates imagined. It will be a new and signal 
illustration of the folly of revenge. This act will 
utterly destroy what little remaining sympathy there 
was in any quarter for the falling cause of the con- 
federacy. It will establish an ineradicable aversion 
toward it in the breasts of all right-minded men, of all 
patriots, of all lovers of law and order, of all friends 
of their fello\^nen, of all desiring the welfare of 
mankind. He had centered upon him those aiu'mosi- 
ties every where felt toward those who stood by our 
government; those animosities, to a great extent, 
will be buried with him ; — while even where, to any 
extent, they may partially or temporarily remain, his 
sad and wicked end will greatly soften and ameliorate 
them. Diversities of political views and feelings can 
be no longer violently cherished over such a grave ; 
we shall all together deprecate the deed, and the causes 
which led to it. There are none of us, I think, who 



13 

will go forward to our Avork and duties as citizens of 
this Republic any the worse for going on more soberly 
and sadly. This event falls most exactly in the line 
of God's dealing with us ever since the commence- 
ment of our difficulties, by never letting us long rest 
in our dependence on any individual. He has sig- 
nally disappointed us in this respect, by death and 
otherwise, and utterly defeated all our tendencies to 
the adulation of any one. It seems to be his great 
purpose thus, as in other ways, that, under him, our 
people must look to themselves for the accomplishing 
what they need and desire. It is a great effort of his 
providence to elevate and strengthen the individual 
sense of duty and obligation among all the people. 
It is a republicanizing and democratizing of the people 
on a plane of elevation and importance in advance of 
every thing thus far in our national experience and 
character. 

But most imperfectly can our poor discernment 
now interpret the lessons of this event. Let us at 
least "humble ourselves under the mighty hand of 
God, that he may exalt us in due time" from the 
dust of our present abasement and sorrow. Let us 
together give our united, undjang enmity to those 
great causes and evils which have culminated in this 
final crime. Let us give ourselves anew to the love 
and service of our countr}^, on whose altar such sacri- 
fices have been laid. Let us in the presence of such 
a death realize anew the old-urged truth that no posi- 
tion gives immunity from the grave, and that every 
life hastens speedily to render its account to God. 



14 

And now rest thee, thou man beloved by more 
hearts and more beloved than any man in this nation 
before, and by none more than the dusky race, who 
will ever hail thee as their deliverer from bondage ; 
thou man — mercifully raised up by heaven for the 
fearful crisis of our times — singularly endowed, 
doubtless, with the qualities most needed for the 
peculiar and arduous position to which thou wast 
called — by turns doubted of by every class and 
party, but in the end centering upon thyself more 
regard and confidence by far than any other ; — thou 
kindly-hearted man, incapable of malice or ill-will 
long retained, thy very genialness and humor, a gift 
sustaining thee, perhaps, when others would have 
sunk beneath depression and care ; — thou man of the 
people — thou perfect representative of the character 
and the admirableness of our institutions, which can 
elevate the humblest and the poorest to the loftiest 
position among us, and fit worthily and well to fill it ; 
thou wouldst not thyself have regretted that thy 
blood should mingle with that of the myriad patriot 
heroes, the victims of the spirit and deed of this rebell- 
ion — one affluent more of that mighty tide of blood 
ransoming our land ; — how much better thy dead and 
mutilated form to the living form of the now fugitive 
head of the rebellion ; — thou diest, a nation bending 
over thee in sorrow and in love ; — he lives, a nation's 
execrations following him for evermore ! — rest thee, 
worn and weary with the cares of State in most un- 
precedented burden, our need and our perils imposed 
on thee — well and bravely hast thou borne the bur- 
den, untiringly, uncomplainingly ; and now thou hast 
laid it off; not too soon for thee, we pray it may not 



15 

be too soon for us ! — the last, greatest murder of the 
rebellion, the last, greatest sacrifice for us ; — the hatred 
of our enemies toward us laid on thee — their venom 
concentrated upon thee — their malice, by the most 
detestable of crimes, wreaking a coveted, cowardly 
vengeance ; — bearing so much, suffering so much, and 
at last thus murdered, simply because thou wert our 
President, sustaining, directing, defending, delivering 
our government; — rest thee now from thy great 
and weary work! history will give thee a high 
and spotless fame ; it will record thee as one of the 
most amiable and unexceptionable of men, as one 
of the truest and noblest of patriots, as one of the 
wisest and ablest of Presidents; — rest thee in the 
Republic's undying honor, reverence, gratitude and 
love — and may a Redeemer's advocacy and blood 
crown thy soul with celestial glory, immortal happi- 
ness, and everlasting life ! 



